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“The Essential” review – Three Chords and The Truth (UK)

January 3, 2016January 3, 2016

An excerpt from the first review of The Essential Gretchen Peters (release date 29 January 2016):

From the tracks that may not be so familiar, the previously unreleased duet with Bryan Adams ‘When You Love Someone’ will raise eyebrows. Just to re-enforce the fact that Gretchen can be a great interpreter of songs, she has included John Lennon’s ‘Love’ and a version of the timeless standard ‘When You Wish upon a Star’. However the jaw dropping surprise moment of the record is a wonderful rendition of the traditional favourite ‘The Cruel Mother’, which had only appeared before as a bonus track on BLACKBIRDS. A couple of songs do feature twice with the work tape takes of ‘Blackbirds’ featuring its co-writer Ben Glover and the increasingly viewed masterpiece ‘Five Minutes’, this time without the impeccable timing of the album version.

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